


We Can Work It Out

by KathyG



Series: John Watson's life [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bullying, Gen, Medical Training, No Slash, One Shot, Pre-Sherlock, junior house officer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28594131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathyG/pseuds/KathyG
Summary: John, who has just recently started his first rotation as a junior house officer following his graduation from medical school, must deal with hostile nurses who seem bent on bullying and intimidating him and the other junior doctors. He must find a way to deal with them, but how?
Series: John Watson's life [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015687
Kudos: 2





	We Can Work It Out

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, Besleybean, for beta-reading and Brit-picking my story! And for suggesting its title.

“Idiot!” 

John sighed and, straightening his back, rubbed his forehead as the floor’s ward sister shouted at him. He had just mistyped the results of a patient’s blood work, and the sister had seen him do it. His temple started to throb, and he began to rub it with his left hand while placing his other hand on his right hip. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time that the ward sister or one of the other nurses had shouted at him for making a mistake. 

Nor was their mistreatment of him limited to shouting. Right at the beginning of his rotation, some of the nurses, including the ward sister, had taken to humiliating him in front of his colleagues, blaming him for problems that others had caused, and picking on him in a variety of ways. In short, to bullying and harassing him. John had noticed from the start that those same nurses treated the other junior doctors the same way. He had begun his first rotation as a junior house officer a week before, a rotation in general surgery and medicine. Professor Barber and Dr. Cullens were his instructors. When that four-month rotation ended, there would be two more of them to go in two other hospitals within that year, during which time he would be going through some other specialties so that he could get a flavour of medicine and surgery; after that, he would embark on his year as a senior house officer. One of those rotations would take place in a hospital outside of London; John didn’t yet know where. Unfortunately, some of the hospital nurses were already making his work as a junior doctor most unpleasant. 

_I was so excited to begin my work as a house officer,_ he thought bitterly. _I knew the work would be hard and the hours would be long, and I knew I’d have to do a lot of the jobs that the consultants don’t want to bother with. I figured it’d be worth it, though, because in the end, I’d be a certified doctor ready to go into practice. What I_ didn’t _expect was to be treated like this by the nurses! I thought I’d left the bullying behind when I finished grammar school. Thank goodness the consultants don’t treat us this way._ He shook his head. 

To be fair, not all of the staff nurses bullied and harassed him and the other junior house officers. Some of them, in fact, were very decent towards him and the others, and were willing to work with them. But the ward sister and some of the staff nurses were continually frustrated at having to deal with the junior doctors—mainly, at having to take orders from them. Some of them had taken to bullying the junior house officers, including John, just to take out their frustrations on them. Fortunately, John had learned at an early age to not take the bait from bullies, to refuse to get intimidated; that lesson served him in good stead now. He simply refused to allow the hostile nurses to intimidate and browbeat him, which in turn quite unsettled them. 

_Some of the nurses here have years of experience. I know that,_ he thought, as he bent back over the computer, deleted his typo, and retyped the results. That time, they were correct, so he straightened his back. _Whereas,_ I _just graduated from medical school, so they resent us house officers ordering them around. After all, we still have much to learn, and they know it._

“Did you hear me, Dr. Watson?” The ward sister’s voice sounded tight and angry. 

Turning toward her, John nodded. “Yes. You said, ‘idiot.’” 

“And you are!” 

John cocked his head and raised his eyes. “Why? Because I made a typo?” 

With a frustrated sigh, the ward sister didn’t answer, but threw up her hands and stalked off. John leaned against the wall and sighed deeply, shaking his head. Unless he could establish some kind of rapport with the ward sister and the staff nurses, his work as a junior house officer was going to be a true nightmare. Somehow, he had to make it clear to them that even though he was still a doctor in training, he was worthy of their respect. 

But how? 

_Unlike when I was in primary and grammar school, I can’t handle_ these _bullies by fighting them. Not with my fists, anyway. In the past, I could always stop a bully by getting into a brawl with him. But those bullies were all boys, and with a few exceptions, these nurses are women, and I was taught, growing up, that boys do not fight with girls. It wouldn’t be right. I_ could _shout back at them, give them tit for tat, but it wouldn’t get me anywhere. Guess I can always take my anger out on the targets I shoot at when I go to my Army Reserve unit this weekend, but that would only be a stopgap measure._

Sighing again, John glanced down at the cheap watch he had recently bought at Oxfam; even though he was left-handed, he always wore his watches on his left hand so he wouldn’t have to take them off every time he had to reset the time on them. He went downstairs to the hospital cafeteria. It was lunchtime, and he was hoping that some of his fellow house officers would be there. At least, he wasn’t the only one receiving this unjust treatment from the nurses, and together, he and the others could always commiserate with one another. During his lunch break, he also needed to call the NatWest branch bank that he had visited just before beginning his first rotation. Waiting until his shift was over before he called them wasn’t an option; the bank would be closed by then. 

_Thank goodness I’ve already transferred my bank account to another NatWest bank near here. It won’t be long before both of my wages will be directly deposited at this branch bank._

To his relief, he discovered Dr. Mike Stamford and Joel Harrison sitting at one of the square white tables in the far corner; glancing up, Mike waved at John and gestured toward the two empty chairs. Smiling and gesturing towards the bar where the food was located, John made his way towards the other side of the cafeteria, where he picked up a tuna sandwich and a bag of potato crisps, as well as a small carton of milk and a paper napkin. Placing them all on a tray, he joined the other two junior doctors and plopped down on a chair. 

“Have the others eaten yet?” John asked, leaning back in his hardback chair, and then took a bite out of his sandwich. He meant the other junior doctors. 

“Some of them have,” Joel said. “The others are busy at the moment.” 

Nodding, John chewed and swallowed, and then, opening his little carton of milk, he took a swallow. The milk tasted cold. Opening his bag of crisps, he said, “I only just finished typing in the results of a patient’s blood work a few minutes ago.” He grimaced as memories of the hostile ward sister came back into his mind. 

“That’s not all you did, is it?” Mike said shrewdly. John made a face, but did not speak. Mike leaned back in his chair. “Let me guess—one of the nurses gave you a hard time.” 

John nodded back and glanced down at the white lab coat he had put on when his shift had started. “I made a typo as I was entering the results on the computer, and one of the more hostile nurses just happened to be there when I did. The floor’s ward sister, no less, Sister Ainsworth. She called me an idiot.” 

Mike and Joel exchanged sombre looks. “This seems to be the lot of us junior doctors,” Mike said, shaking his head. “For some reason, Sister Ainsworth and the staff nurses don’t like us.” 

John sighed and, leaning back, rested his hands in his lap. “I’ve been trying to puzzle this out, and I think it’s not so much that they don’t like us as that they resent taking orders from us. I mean, let’s face it, guys, we only just graduated from medical school a couple of months ago. The nurses have much more experience in their field than we’ve got in ours; some of them have years, even decades, of experience. We learned the basics in medical school; now we’ve got to learn everything we need to know to become fully licenced doctors. There’s still so much to learn before we get out there and start practising.” Leaning forward, he put a crisp in his mouth and started chewing. It tasted salty and delicious. 

Mike nodded agreement. “That’s true.” He sighed. “But the nurses aren’t making it very easy for us, are they? At least, the ones who seem intent on bullying us house officers.” 

John swallowed. “I know.” Pursing his lips, he shook his head. “I’m thankful that not all of the staff nurses are like that. Some of them, and most of the student nurses, have been very decent towards us, so far, but the rest of them are just quite frustrated with us, and some of those are downright hostile.” He bit his lower lip. “Trouble is, even if we manage to prove ourselves to them before this rotation is up, we’re going to have to start all over again with the new crop of nurses at the start of our next rotation, wherever that is.” 

“Isn’t that the truth?” Mike muttered. Out loud, he said, “We’ll just have to see what we can do, then, and hope that what we learn in dealing with the nurses here will help us at the next hospital.” John and Joel agreed. 

_Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll be assigned to the same hospital for our next rotation,_ John thought. 

Silence descended over the group as they finished their lunch. When they were done, they emptied their trays and laid them aside, and then Mike and Joel went back to work. “I’ve got to make a phone call before I return upstairs,” John told the others, and they nodded. 

“We’ll wait for you,” Joel offered. Smiling his thanks, John approached the phone on the wall and dialled NatWest’s number. While cradling the phone to his left ear, he spent the next few minutes speaking with one of the employees at the branch bank to find out how long it would take his money to be transferred from his old account at the other NatWest bank to his new one. Fortunately, it wouldn’t be necessary for him to get a new chequebook and debit card; the ones he currently had would still do. When John hung up, he glanced at his watch. It was time to return to work. The three of them left the cafeteria and returned upstairs to the floor they’d been assigned to, the surgical floor. 

“Well, well—if it isn’t the idiots who don’t know what they’re doing.” The ward sister who had badgered John while he was entering the blood test results onto the computer earlier halted in front of them, a mean smirk on her face. Two of the staff nurses stood near her, the same mean smirks on their faces. “And what do you think you’ll be doing now?” She folded her arms across her chest and stared at them challengingly, scanning their faces, and the staff nurses snickered. 

“Doing our job,” John told her coldly, clenching his hands tightly. “Same as you.” Without another word, he strode on past her and her colleagues, and Mike and Joel went their own separate ways. It gave John grim satisfaction to know that he had once again refused to let that ward sister bait him. 

For the rest of the day, John was busy tending to patients. As usual, he had spent the morning accompanying one of the senior doctors on ward rounds. He spent the afternoon and evening writing out blood request forms, checking blood results and typing them on the computer, completing the paperwork for new patients, and writing and signing the discharge letters for several patients who were ready to leave the hospital. Once, he had to perform an enema on one of the patients. Fortunately, he didn’t have to worry about returning to a flat when his shift was over for the day. The hospital provided free on-site accommodation for the house officers, which John had decided to take advantage of; the other hospitals he worked at following this rotation would do the same. That would enable him to save his hospital salary and his Army Reserves salary for the future, for when he was ready to enter a training programme and then go into regular practice. Then, he would have to get some place to live and set up a budget, and he knew that having as much money saved in his cheque account as possible would help when that time came. 

When his 16-hour shift ended, a weary John slowly trudged to the part of the hospital where he and the other house officers spent the nights. It consisted of single rooms that were all divided into flats; each flat contained its own shared kitchen and bathroom. It was almost like the student accommodations that John, Mike, and their former classmates had lived in while attending King’s College. In the kitchen that he and Mike shared, John made himself some balsamic chicken and a bowl of salad for supper; after he had eaten it, he brushed his teeth, took a quick shower, and went straight to bed. He was too tired to read. 

_I’ve got to earn the nurses’ respect,_ he thought, as his eyes slid shut. _Somehow, I’ve just_ got _to do that! Somehow._

The next morning was mostly like the previous one. As he did every morning, John and the other junior house officers met with their instructors for their early-morning daily training session. Following the session, as his colleagues also did, he went with a senior doctor from patient to patient as that doctor checked on them all, reading their charts, taking their pulses, examining their heartbeats, and asking them questions about how they were feeling. All the while, John watched and listened to the doctor attentively and paid careful attention to how that doctor’s patients were faring. 

Fortunately, the hostile nurses left him alone during those hours. But once the rounds were finished and John was on his own to perform the follow-up jobs, the harassment began. As always, he either ignored the nurses or responded briefly and curtly to them before moving on. Some of the other junior doctors, he knew, had a much harder time dealing with the bullying since they were so insecure. However, the friendly nurses worked with him to help him perform those jobs, for which he thanked them when they were done. 

Once, after he had finished writing out a blood request form and turning it in, one of the friendly staff nurses rushed into the room. “Dr. Watson, I think you need to see this!” With a nod, John followed her out of the room and down the hall, till they entered one of the private rooms. 

That room was occupied by a surgical patient who was being attended by the ward sister, the one who was the most hostile to the junior house officers. Ignoring her, John took a long, intent look at the unconscious patient; his face was red. John laid his hand on the man’s forehead; it felt hot. The man was running a fever. 

He removed the bandage to examine the incision site. To his dismay, the skin surrounding it was red and swollen, and pus was draining out of it. “Wound infection,” he muttered. 

John turned towards the staff nurse who had brought him. “Go get Dr. Davenport, stat,” he ordered. Nodding, the staff nurse left. Since Dr. Davenport was the surgeon who had operated on this patient, he needed to be told immediately what was happening. John turned toward the ward sister. 

“Nurse, we’ve got to collect a bacterial culture, so I want you to hand me a cotton swab,” John ordered. With a nod, a mischievous smirk crept across the ward sister’s face as she ducked her head. It was too late, however; John had seen that smirk just as the ward sister lowered her head. Immediately, he straightened his back and frowned. 

“Nurse Ainsworth,” John warned her in a firm voice. “Whatever you’re plotting, don’t!” 

Raising her head, the ward sister glared at him; John stood his ground and looked at her sternly. “I mean it,” he told her firmly. “Shouting at me, insulting me, and trying to humiliate me in front of my colleagues is one thing. But endangering the health or life of a patient just to make me or any house officer look bad is totally unacceptable!” He paused to let his point sink in. “I _really_ don’t think you want to risk a malpractice suit just to set me up.” He stretched out the word, “really,” to emphasize his point. 

For a long moment, Sister Ainsworth simply stared at him. Finally, slumping her shoulders, she sighed and nodded. “No, doctor.” 

John nodded. “Good.” He nodded toward the patient. “This man has a family waiting for him at home, and they would much prefer to get him back alive and healthy, you know.” 

Sister Ainsworth nodded agreement. “That’s true.” 

John’s voice turned brisk and business-like. “Now, then, with that settled, I want you to hand me that swab so I can collect some of that drainage pus while we wait for Dr. Davenport to arrive.” He gave her a gimlet look. “Can I count on you to do your job, so I can do mine?” 

Sister Ainsworth looked him in the eye and nodded. “Yes, Dr. Watson.” 

John nodded back. “Thank you.” The ward sister handed him the swab, and with his left hand, he began to collect some of the pus; meanwhile, Sister Ainsworth took the man’s temperature. It was high. After John had collected the pus onto the swab, he took the man’s pulse. Afterward, placing his stethoscope’s earpieces in his ears, John placed its chest piece on the man’s chest so he could check his heart rate. As soon as John had finished, he straightened his back, stuck the chest piece in his lab coat’s left pocket, lowered the earpieces back around his neck, and turned back to the ward sister. 

“When we’re done in here, I want you to gather the other staff nurses and the student nurses and meet me in the sunroom.” Sister Ainsworth gave him a quizzical look. A grim smile crept across John’s face. “We need to come to an understanding, Nurse Ainsworth. This has gone on too long. For all of us.” 

Grimacing, the ward sister nodded acquiescence. “Yes, doctor.” 

**XXXXXXX**

Half an hour after Dr. Davenport had arrived, confirmed John’s diagnosis of post-operative wound infection, and prescribed an intravenous antibiotic for the patient, which Sister Ainsworth had immediately administered, a group of staff nurses and student nurses had gathered in the sunroom on that floor. The sun’s rays poured into the room, forming rectangles of light on the floor and illuminating the sofas and armchairs that sat scattered throughout the room. 

John stood silently, regarding them all. “I _know_ we can work this out,” he told them after a moment. “And we must.” 

First, with a fond smile, he turned towards the friendly nurses. “First, I want to thank you, Nurse Franklin. And you, Nurse Baxter.” He addressed several other staff nurses who had treated him and the other house officers decently since the beginning of their rotation, followed by the student nurses. “All of you have been most helpful to us junior house officers, and I wish to thank you for that.” 

Turning to the others, he inserted his hands into his jeans pockets and said, “I know the rest of you have a problem with the house officers, including myself. Now, I’m going to tell you what I sense the problem is, and you correct me if I’m wrong. But I get the feeling that you resent being ordered around by someone who hasn’t long been out of medical school.” 

“We sure do!” one of the staff nurses complained. “This is so frustrating for us! Why, some of you don’t even know what implement to place into a particular orifice.” 

Rolling his eyes, John choked down his laughter, but made no effort to hide his amusement. “Not yet, anyway. And I know that in your eyes, I’m just a wet-behind-the-ears junior doctor whom you deeply resent telling you what to do. All of you are experienced nurses, I know. Some of you, in fact, have _years_ of experience. The same cannot be said for a house officer on his first rotation.” 

“That’s exactly the problem!” complained Sister Ainsworth. “We have _much_ more experience than any of you, and yet you have the audacity to order _us_?” 

“Even a junior house officer outranks us, Sister Ainsworth,” Nurse Franklin reminded the ward sister. “As doctors, they have the right to give orders.” 

“That’s right,” John agreed. “And don’t forget, Nurse Ainsworth, every doctor begins as a house officer. The doctors who run this hospital— _they_ all began as house officers. And really, when you graduated from nursing school, did you know everything you needed to know, to be good nurses? Did you not have to continue to learn and to gain experience, once you were hired?” 

Scanning their faces, he added, “And, you know, with that said, you’re right. I _am_ just a wet-behind-the-ears junior house officer who still has much to learn. _But_ —” He stopped to make his point and lifted his left hand out of his jeans pocket. “—I am a wet-behind-the-ears junior house officer who’s determined to become a good doctor before I finish my two years as house officer and get fully certified. I mean to go on learning, to learn everything I possibly can, so I can become one.” He pointed his finger at himself for good measure and, dropping his hand to his side, he looked each nurse in the eye. “To that end, I am fully prepared to learn from my instructors, and from the senior doctors I accompany on their rounds in the mornings. I am also willing to learn from you when the need arises. I already know I can count on my instructors and the senior doctors to help me improve in my skills. Can I count on you nurses as well?” He paused. “Can all of us house officers count on you there?” 

None of the nurses responded, but John sensed that his words were hitting their mark. “This will go much better for us all if we work together than if we fight each other. All of us,” he said more gently. “It’s not only the other house officers and me this is bad for; it’s also bad for the patients. We can’t give our patients the good quality care they deserve if we’re too busy battling each other. I’m willing to learn from you as well as from the senior doctors, but I need you to work with me and give me your respect. And the same goes for the rest of the junior doctors. All of us house officers need that respect.” 

Sister Ainsworth glanced at the staff nurses and student nurses surrounding her and then sighed. “Very well, Dr. Watson,” she said. “I’ll admit, you did a good job with Mr. Boyd when you performed that bacterial culture and diagnosed his wound infection, and brought Dr. Davenport up to date when he came in.” 

Smiling, John nodded. “Thank you. Coming from you, sister, that means a lot. That _is_ my goal, you know, to get better and better at my job so that when the time comes for me to go into practice, I’ll have all the skills I need to provide my patients good quality care.” 

He did not say anything more. He didn’t need to. He could see from their faces that they had gotten the message. “All right, then.” He clasped his hands together. “Let’s get back to work, shall we? We’ve got patients to tend.” He stood back as the nurses exited the sunroom, and then followed them, glancing at his watch as he did so.

**Author's Note:**

> I have gotten many of the details for this story by reading wellingtongoose’s meta, [“John Watson: MB, Junior Doctor, Glorified Paper-monkey, Everybody’s B____”](https://wellingtongoose.tumblr.com/post/54545545289/john-watson-mb-junior-doctor-glorified). According to John’s CV, he performed his first rotation at University College Hospital. It was by reading that meta that I learned of the bullying from nurses that junior doctors have been known to endure, sad to say.
> 
> I’ve learned from Besleybean that a ward sister is the British equivalent of an American head nurse. I have also learned from her the British nursing profession’s traditional hierarchy.
> 
> There’s one thing I haven’t been able to resolve. Also according to John’s CV, he graduated from medical school in 2004; however, University College London only moved into its current facilities in 2005. (Queen Elizabeth II officially opened it in October of that year.) Therefore, I have no way of knowing where UCH was located in 2004, the year that John embarked on the first of his junior house officer rotations, or what its facilities consisted of at the time.


End file.
